France's Jewish population has suffered a spate of recent anti-Semitic attacks recently.
In the latest incident -- just hours before Saturday's marches -- arsonists threw petrol bombs into a Jewish sports club in southern France, damaging furniture and sports equipment.
Police said the door to the Maccabi club, in Toulouse, was forced open and petrol-filled bottles thrown inside. No one was injured.
On Friday an unexploded home-made bomb was found in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France that had already been a target of arsonists earlier in the week.
In southern France, three men admitted throwing petrol bombs and setting ablaze a building containing a synagogue in the city of Montpellier earlier this week.
In Paris, police have questioned five suspects accused of throwing petrol bombs at a synagogue on Wednesday.
The government has condemned the anti-Semitic violence and increased police surveillance of Jewish religious sites.
Now you've got me all upset. I'm about as pure French as you can get outside of France... Both my parents are of French decent.ol' man said:Sadly I am probably about 1/8 French. Yeck.
flavio said:Doesn't sound anyhting like Nazi Germany.
And how is it that you generalize a whole country from the actions of a few people?
flavio said:Doesn't sound anyhting like Nazi Germany.
And how is it that you generalize a whole country from the actions of a few people?
Because of their stance on Iraq and the enourmous amounts of people demonstrating in their streets.
flavio said:flavio said:Doesn't sound anyhting like Nazi Germany.
And how is it that you generalize a whole country from the actions of a few people?
Because of their stance on Iraq and the enourmous amounts of people demonstrating in their streets.
I just don't see the fact that they don't agree with you about Iraq as a reason to generalize the whole country as Nazi, Jew-killing, synagouge bombers.
Squiggy said:I'm a "Boomer". I respect the flag. I've defended our flag. Have you?
South Koreans rally to support US military
AP[ SUNDAY, MARCH 02, 2003 01:41:07 AM ]
SEOUL: Tens of thousands of pro-US demonstrators jammed a downtown plaza in Seoul on Saturday to support the US troop presence in South Korea and condemn North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons programme.
Many in the crowd of mostly elderly people estimated at 100,000 by police waved South Korean and US flags. Others held placards reading: "We love America!" or "We oppose the withdrawal of US military from South Korea."
The rally in the South Korean capital was timed to coincide with a March 1 Korean holiday commemorating a failed nationwide revolt against Japanese imperial rule in 1919. Japan controlled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945.
But today's turnout was far less than the 500,000 expected by rally organisers.
Most of the demonstrators were military veterans and members of conservative civic groups. They released thousands of blue balloons that carried messages calling for peace and an end to North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
Banners called North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a "war maniac" and compared North Korea, an impoverished country suspected of developing nuclear weapons, to a "rabid dog that needs beating with a bludgeon."
"One atomic bomb dropped in Seoul would kill 5 million people in a blink. We must employ all means to stop the North from developing nuclear bombs," a statement said.
http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000425.phpThe massive and influential South Korean student movement (students have always had a huge influence on South Korean politics) is demonstrating against the US troop presence, which is not a good sign -- not at all. Tensions over the US troop presence almost boiled over when two 14-year-old girls were run over and killed by a US armored personnel carrier north of Seoul last June. A court marshall of the drivers of that APC acquitted them, causing widespread demonstrations in the ROK.
It's quite possible that South Korean demonstrations against the United States are, at least to some extent, spurred on by North Korean agents and subersives. It's been done before, the DPRK is very good at it, and there's no reason to assume it isn't happening now. The fact is, however, that the South Koreans are upset.
Squiggy said:ol' man, my point was are you now or have you ever been in the armed services? Or do you just go around calling people who don't think like you communists? You're not defending the flag by telling others their thoughts don't count.
ol' man said:What does that matter if I have served in the armed forces or not? If I have not am I suppose to bow at your feet and regard your opinion as fact? I know alot of people that have been in the services that left the services hating the US government and I would hardly call them patriotic, quite the opposite.